Communications Overview: Social Media Handles/Usernames

Consistency is important in communications, and social media is no exception to this rule. Social media accounts have what are referred to as handles, which are a way for your audience to find or tag your page on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Use the same handle (username) on all of your social media platforms. If you can make your handle the same as your website URL, that is even better! Even if you aren’t ready to use additional platforms, go ahead and reserve the handle on other platforms by setting up an account on them. Just don’t point your congregants/audience to those social accounts until you are ready to use them regularly.

Example: The Moravian Board of Cooperative Ministries’ website URL is https://www.MoravianBCM.org. We can be found by and tagged with @MoravianBCM on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This saves us from confusion and makes promoting our online presence much easier. On promotional materials, we just need each social media logo (or list them by name), and @MoravianBCM next to the logos or list. Add our website, email, and phone number, and we’re good to go!

Your “handle” on social media is usually all one word with no spaces, and is typically preceded by an “@” symbol (at least in the case of the big three social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). It can also be called a username. This is different than your display name.*

Example: our display name on Facebook is “The Moravian Board of Cooperative Ministries (BCM).” Our handle, or username, is @MoravianBCM. The handle is also what is used in your social profile’s URL (https://www.Facebook.com/MoravianBCM or https://www.Instagram.com/MoravianBCM). It is critical that you set up your username on Facebook (it doesn’t necessarily do it automatically). Otherwise, you’ll get an impossible to remember URL for your Facebook Page.

It is less important for your display name to be the same on each platform (some platforms limit length more than others). But it recommended for churches to always have the word “church” at the end of their display names, so they’ll appear in searches for churches on each of the platforms.

That is all for now. I hope this short overview is helpful to you!

Don’t hesitate to ask the BCM or myself questions here or on social media. You may also email me at Andrew@MoravianBCM.org.

*Facebook calls it a “Page name” and Twitter calls it a “display name.” For simplicity and consistency’s sake, I’ve defaulted to using “display name” here for all three major platforms. This is also a bit more accurate, as the term “Pages” is used exclusively by Facebook to identify public entities active on their platform.

Andrew David Cox is the Communications Project Manager for the Moravian Board of Cooperative Ministries (BCM). Andrew is a driven creative person with established experience and skill in a variety of fields. Experience includes communications, social media management, event coordination, marketing, graphic design, photography, customer service, hospitality, security, writing, cartooning, illustration, fine art, and more! His main passion though is creating visually and emotionally interesting creative content for the Internet.

Requests for republishing, click hereWant to volunteer to write for the BCM Spotlight Blog? Click here

Recent Posts

Categories

Categories

About Us

This is the blog site of the Moravian BCM. Any blog posts that carry the Spotlight banner are apart of The BCM Spotlight Blog. Other posts may include general announcements or agency and provincial statements.

The Board of Cooperative Ministries engages and supports congregations and Regional Conferences in their ministries as together we grow in faith, love and hope, following Jesus in serving the world.

Want to contribute to the blog?

We hope to bring fresh perspective and inspire thought on topics of interest to Moravians in the midst of a rapidly changing world. Visit our Submission Guidelines page to find out how you can get in on this conversation.

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.